The Boogeyman of Brucellosis

Ranchers fear disease, but only in wildlife.

Legislative Audit finds Montana Dept. of Livestock not enforcing and ranchers not complying with Designated Surveillance Area rules

Legislative Audit Division, A Report to the Montana Legislature Performance Audit Brucellosis Management in the State of Montana, Dept. of Livestock, Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks, January 2017.

“The Department of incompetence.”

Despite taxpayer funding, incompetent implementation by the Montana Dept. of Livestock, and lack of rancher compliance with their own rules, the state’s brucellosis free status remains intact.

The Department of Livestock is not enforcing the required Designated Surveillance Area rules.

The Department of Livestock’s “current compliance and oversight process does not directly monitor” and verify whether brucellosis testing is occurring for movements of livestock out of the Designated Surveillance Area. (18)

Of 225 movements of livestock involving at least 10,000 head of livestock out of the Designated Surveillance Area, only 40 movements documented “health requirements” though this information does not disclose the required brucellosis test. (17)

The Department of Livestock is not following up on rancher noncompliance for brucellosis testing and consistently enforcing its Designated Surveillance Area rules. (17)

Between 3% and 53% of elk have been exposed to brucellosis in the hunting districts encompassed by the Designated Surveillance Area boundary. (33)

The majority of the funding for Fish, Wildlife & Parks brucellosis management comes from federal revenue transferred from the Dept. of Livestock. Fish, Wildlife & Parks is also using general license and Pittman-Robertson funding. (35)

Fish, Wildlife & Park’s assistance to landowners is provided without having defined eligibility criteria for landowners receiving such assistance. (35)

“35 percent of the brucellosis response actions were carried out on land that either allowed no public hunting access or limited access to public hunters.” (36)

“31 percent of the management actions lacked associated documentation of public hunting access status of the land the action was carried out on.” (36)

The taxpayer funding flows through the Montana Dept. of Livestock – from the same pot of money the livestock agency uses to destroy wild buffalo in the state.

“Must kill the big bad buffalo.”

In lethally removing wild bison, the Montana Department of Livestock is not following adaptive management. (30–32)

“However, in 2015, DOL personnel conducted two lethal removals of bison. . . Though these bison were outside of the IBMP management zones, documentation of these incidents did not establish that the bison poses an imminent threat of coming into contact with livestock that necessitated lethal removal of the bison, nor were there initial attempts to haze the bison from the conflict area. The IBMP Adaptive Management Plan specifies that bison in conflict areas are initially to be hazed from the area. DOL lethally removed bison that may not have represented a brucellosis threat, and operational documentation did not provide a clear rationale as to why lethal removal was necessary in these cases.” (31)

“Neither DOL management nor the associated documentation made it clear why the IBMP adaptive management guidelines were not followed in these particular cases.” (31)

“Blame it on the elk.”

“The regulations that comprise the DSA program impact approximately 78,500 head of livestock that graze or live within the DSA boundary on either a seasonal or a year-round basis, and this number represents approximately 5.2 percent of the livestock in the state as a whole, according to Department of Livestock records.” (7)

Montana is maintaining its brucellosis Class Free status despite six incidents of brucellosis infections in livestock since 2010. (5, 9)

Learn more about Yellowstone Bison and Brucellosis

ABOUT US

BFC's goal is to stop the slaughter and harassment of Yellowstone's wild buffalo herds, protect the natural habitat of wild free-roaming buffalo and native wildlife, and to work with people of all Nations to honor the sacredness of wild buffalo.